


What It Means to Be An Omega

by GonewithFantasy



Series: Just some stories about omega Jaskier [5]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alpha Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Happy Jaskier, I'm Bad At Titles, M/M, Mates, Omega Jaskier | Dandelion, Omega Verse, musings of omega Jaskier about his life, traveling on the path
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GonewithFantasy/pseuds/GonewithFantasy
Summary: A collection of short stories and musings about Jaskier's life as an omega with all its perks and downsides. Well, mostly downsides, but Jaskier is a really positive and happy person here. :)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Just some stories about omega Jaskier [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041939
Comments: 20
Kudos: 84





	1. Treatment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just imagine that Geralt and Jaskier come from a more liberal area, so Jaskier isn't used to how omegas are treated in some villages (and neither is Geralt).
> 
> Btw. the 'mature' rating is only because of this being ABO verse and there's a brief mention of slick at some point in some chapter. xD

"One glass of wine, Mettina Rosé," Jaskier repeated a little louder, giving the owner of the inn a firm look, attempting to finally get his attention. Even though the beta was practically standing in front of him, he just kept looking right through Jaskier, ignoring both the omega and the coin that Jaskier had put down on the counter.  
Jaskier placed one hand on his hip, waving the other one in front of the innkeeper's face. "Hello-o?!"  
When the innkeeper realized he couldn't just keep on pretending not to notice the omega, he sighed and finally met his eye. He seemed uncomfortable. "You know, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to serve you any alcoholic beverages...," he started, giving him an apologetic look.

"What?!" Jaskier interrupted him. "I'm 25 years old!" Right then a girl, probably about sixteen years of age, walked past him, sipping at a pint of ale she was carrying. Jaskier's mouth fell open and he helplessly gestured at the girl and then at himself, not able to form words, at least none that wouldn't have resulted in him getting kicked out of the inn.

The innkeeper pressed his lips together. "You know, I'd really feel better about this if you checked in with your alpha first." He nodded over to where Geralt was currently having a conversation with a villager about some contract he was considering taking on.

Jaskier crossed his arms in front of his chest, suppressing the urge to just walk behind the bar and get that stupid glass of wine himself, and called over to the witcher. Geralt didn't turn his head and kept speaking to the villager. Jaskier called his name again, now almost shouting it, and this time, not only Geralt but several other patrons turned their heads. Jaskier swallowed as he felt their gazes lingering on him.

It wasn't like he didn't enjoy being the center of attention given the right circumstances. In this type of situation, however, he really would have preferred not to have an audience though. Suddenly, he couldn't think of anything to say to Geralt in order to explain the situation anyways, at least not of anything that wouldn't have sounded absolutely pathetic.

Instead, Jaskier just turned back to the inkeeper. "Nevermind," he huffed, snatching his coin from the counter. For the rest of the evening, Jaskier settled on taking sips from Geralt's ale every now and then. It tasted like piss and he wasn't a big fan of ale anyways.

Soon Jaskier grabbed his lute and started to play a few songs. The people clapped and happily sung along, making Jaskier forget about the earlier events. When they started tossing their coin, however, they tossed it to Geralt. Which wouldn't have been that unusual, except...Jaskier hadn't sung 'Toss a Coin to Your Witcher' that evening.

Of course, Geralt didn't take notice and picked up the coin to hand it to Jaskier later as he usually would when Jaskier deliberately made his audience toss their coin to Geralt instead of him.

The audience's reaction made Jaskier feel like a puppet on strings. Nobody would ever think of paying the puppet but, of course, its owner, which in his case appeared to be... He looked over to the witcher who still didn't seem to have a clue.

Jaskier sighed inwardly, but he was too much of a professional to let his emotions shine through though, and so he kept on smiling and singing until it was late at night.

He still hadn't eaten anything and his stomach was reminding him of that fact with a loud growl. Jaskier walked over to Geralt's table and put his lute down. The witcher had left the inn to relieve himself. Jaskier grabbed some of the coin he had earned that evening, walked up to the counter again and ordered a bowl of chicken stew.

The only thing he got was a wide-eyed stare though.

"What is it this time, is there alcohol in the stew as well?" Jaskier asked, barely able to conceal his indignation anymore.

The innkeeper shook his head. "No, but...are you allowed to take coin from your alpha like that?"

Jaskier's mouth fell open for the second time this day. "I...you know that I just earned these...oh, te caen me a'baeth aep arse!" *

Fortunately, the innkeeper didn't seem to understand Elder Speech, judging by the way he just shrugged and continued stirring the pot of chicken stew. "When your alpha returns, he can order everything you like to have, okay?" the innkeeper suggested, probably in an attempt at being nice.

Without commenting on that, Jaskier turned around and sat down at the table where Geralt's half-eaten bowl of onion soup was sitting. The omega hated onion soup, but he was really hungry, so he picked up the spoon and started eating. It turned out that the combination of ale and onion soup made for an especially disgusting mix and so upon his return, Geralt was greeted by the sight of Jaskier swallowing the soup like every spoon was pure torture.

Geralt raised his eyebrows. "You don't look like you're enjoying this meal," he stated. "My meal," he added and Jaskier could hear the amusement in the witcher's voice. He was obviously assuming that Jaskier had simply been too lazy (or too impatient) to order his own food and drink.

Suddenly, out of nowhere the innkeeper appeared at their table, asking, "My good Sir, how may I serve your omega? His performance tonight was truly wonderful! Of course, it's completely up to you, but I think he really deserves a treat for this."

For a second, Geralt's brows furrowed in confusion, then he looked at Jaskier and shrugged in a 'go ahead' gesture. The innkeeper smiled, now openly meeting Jaskier's gaze. The bard's hands clenched under the table. He was tempted to just send the innkeeper away again, but that would have left him with this terrible onion soup. "You already know my order," he managed to say in a quiet voice, sounding almost polite.

"Chicken stew and a glass of Mettina Rosé?" the beta asked. Jaskier had already opened his mouth to confirm his order when he realized that the innkeeper had stopped considering him a part of the conversation yet again. The question was clearly directed at Geralt.

What followed was an awkward silence when both the innkeeper and Jaskier were waiting for Geralt to say something while Geralt was waiting for Jaskier's answer. Finally, both Geralt and Jaskier mumbled something that sounded like agreement.

When they left the inn that night, there was a faint smirk on Geralt's lips.

"What is it?" Jaskier asked.

"You know," the witcher replied, "I never realized that while you're incredibly confident performing on a stage, you're painfully shy when it comes to something as mundane as ordering yourself some food."

Jaskier gritted his teeth and sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * When Jaskier uses Elder Speech, he basically says "You can kiss my arse". ;)
> 
> Kudos and comments make me happy! <3


	2. Bathrooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First gender = male/female  
> Second gender = alpha/beta/omega

Jaskier liked the concept of having bathrooms in larger cities. It was so much better than everyone just relieving themselves at random places around an inn. What he didn't like though, was the fact that bathrooms were separated by second instead of first gender. Well, technically, the bathrooms for betas were also separated by male and female. But that was about it.

Still, that wouldn't have been a problem if only more people would have been aware of male omegas. But since they were so rare, Jaskier could always choose between getting into trouble with the omega ladies (at least until they would become aware of his scent, which could take a little while, since one usually doesn't consciously try to smell other people's scents in the bathroom) and getting weird side glances from the male betas when they realized he wasn't one of them.

The whole thing got especially delightful when there was the occasional old omega lady with a bad sense of smell and no knowledge of male omegas even existing. And since Jaskier wasn't one to ever back down from a verbal confrontation, it sometimes lead to things truly escalating and Jaskier's bathroom time being 5% taking care of business and 95% percent having heated discussions with other omegas or betas.

Geralt would never understand why Jaskier would sometimes return from the bathroom looking more disheveled than before after spending much longer in there than the witcher had.

For a short period of time, Jaskier had tried the approach of announcing his omega gender when entering the respective bathroom, but he came to find that no one wants to verbally announce their presence when entering a public bathroom. Yes, the female omegas hadn't openly questioned his second gender then, however, it had been his sanity that had been put into question instead.

And then there were the female omegas who did realize that he was a male omega...and still gave him weird side glances when he entered 'their' bathroom because they just weren't used to it. Luckily, there weren't that many of them though.

Still, even though Jaskier was up and ready to engage in heated discussions almost all the time, there were occasions when he didn't feel like having a verbal fight, however, he did feel like going to the bathroom. Well, turns out that sometimes you can't have one without the other, at least not when you're a male omega.

Sometimes Jaskier would emerge from the bathroom, followed by an omega lady animatedly talking to him (since she was trying to make up for mistaking him for a beta and shouting at him to get out). At other times, he'd emerge exchanging death glares with another person. Geralt would joke about Jaskier always making friends and enemies in the bathroom, but he would never understand that there was a specific reason for this, that it was because of the bard's rare male omega nature. And Jaskier never cared to enlighten Geralt. He truly loved his witcher but...there was no need to share his bathroom stories with him.


	3. Heats

Well, heats could mean a week of pure bliss, of course, and Jaskier didn't dislike the feeling of going through a heat with Geralt by his side and taking care of him in general. Hell, he had to be crazy not to love that feeling.

However, there were a few downsides to it. First, there were the regular side effects of heats. Like everything that was happening during pre-heat, before the actual heat began. The restlessness, the urge to build a nest, the slightly weird feeling of his uterus moving into the right position and the distinctly annoying sensation of his bowel and bladder emptying thoroughly. The mild fever and the urge to be at his alpha's side all the time that could only be described as getting clingly.

Then there was the fact that Jaskier couldn't control them willingly. They were part of a cycle and didn't always care to check in with Geralt's and Jaskier's travelling plans. There was the option of taking suppressants in order to avoid the heats but it wasn't easy.

An omega had to start taking them at least a month before the next heat would set in (and Jaskier constantly kept messing up keeping track of his heat cycles anyways, his head was filled with music and poetry, not with numbers and data). The suppressants had to be taken around the same time each day. Jaskier's life, however, was structured as followed: While they were on the path, he would assume Geralt's rhythm, waking up to the first rays of the sun and going to sleep when the moon would start to rise. When they were staying at an inn, on the other hand, Jaskier would sleep until late afternoon, so that he could stay up the whole night and play his songs at the taverns. Combined with Jaskier's general 'talent' for losing track of time and numbers, successfully taking suppressants was pretty much impossible for him. They were lucky that they didn't have to think of Jaskier taking birth control. Jaskier's coin surely wouldn't have been on him always remembering to take it in time.

He also had to admit that he just wasn't the most reliable person sometimes when it came to statements like 'What? Oh yeah Geralt, I can absolutely pull off that performance at that duke's wedding before my heat sets in, why would you even question that...?'

As for the heat suppressants, there were also some other side effects and issues to them. For example, taking them to suppress more than three heats in a row wasn't recommended because of certain health risks. In addition, the heat that followed after one or more suppressed heats was always especially intense, which wasn't necessarily a good thing, as 'intense' didn't just limit itself to the obvious, but also to fever, cramps, etc. So Jaskier did rather not chance his luck by confusing his body with artifical hormones.

Regarding heats not always checking in with travelling plans and Jaskier's way with numbers, they had managed to miscalculate Jaskier's heat cycle every now and then, ending up with Geralt ~~fucking Jaskier's brains out~~ making love to Jaskier in the middle of the woods in a nest made of nothing but bedrolls, Roach's blanket and two sets of clothes more than once...or twice, for that matter (yes, neither of them was proud of it). And if they, in the heated frenzy of mating, might not have noticed (or cared about) the occasional stranger ~~watching them~~ walking by, only to feel terribly ashamed of themselves once Jaskier's heat had been over, then they never talked about it. 

Another thing that came with his heats and that Jaskier was feeling rather ambivalent about was slick. In full-on heat it felt absolutely wonderful, making any kind of lube completely redundant. Plus, tasting and smelling it made Geralt go absolutely crazy. But was it really necessary that it had to completely drench his pants? When he had been younger and not mated to anyone, unfamiliar with the signs of pre-heat, it had been leading to quite the embarassing situations: Strolling over a market, catching some random alpha's scent...and suddenly feeling warm slick run down his legs, just to name one. Nope, that really was an experience that Jaskier could have done without.

It was also a little annoying how very easily Geralt could make him leak it. Just one or two gentle licks against his scent gland while the witcher was holding him close and Jaskier would start getting wet to the point of it being visible through his pants, no matter how much he tried clenching his muscles down there. They had, in fact, had a very serious discussion about Geralt licking Jaskier's scent glands at any public places because of that. 

Again, Jaskier loved his heats, if only they weren't as...spontaneous. *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Jaskier's heats are in fact quite regular and anything but spontaneous, but with Jaskier being too chaotic to keep track of his cycle, they must surely feel that way to him. :D Still, it never bothers him enough to truly change anything about them or his way of tracking them xD.


	4. Edjucation

It had been hard enough to convince his parents to continue paying for his private teacher after he'd presented as an omega. It had been even harder to convince them to let him attend the university of Oxenfurt. After all, no omega was expected to actually earn a livelihood of their own, instead, it would be his alpha who'd provide for them while the omega would give birth to their children and take care of them.

So while technically omegas weren't prohibited from taking classes at the university of Oxenfurt, it was quite uncommon, and people considered it rather as Jaskier's hobby than anything else. Where his alpha and beta classmates were praised for good results in exams and reprimanded for bad ones, everything Jaskier and the handful of other omegas said and did was only regarded with a mild smile by the professors.

Of course, Jaskier and the few other omegas couldn't attend their classes during their heats and inevitably always missed out on a few lectures. Not that the professors did even care about that, whereas the other students were frowned upon for skipping lectures and had to come up with some good excuse for doing so. And while omegas not being reprimanded for missing out on classes might have seemed like the professors just understood and accepted that they were in heat, that wasn't the case. The reason was rather that no one expected them to actually graduate from university. So even if an omega chose to skip lectures in a pattern that clearly wasn't due to their heats, no one ever commented on that.

There was also that everlasting inner conflict of whether or not Jaskier should attend classes when he was in pre-heat. On the one hand, in this state his mind was still clear enough to sit through a lecture and learn something. On the other hand, however, it made all of the alphas become unfocused around him. It wasn't like they called him out on it but the atmosphere was definitely different in times like this. Not that Jaskier minded the special attention given to him, in fact, he enjoyed it. But the pheromones released by his body during pre-heat also made the alphas tense and more likely to pick fights with each other, and Jaskier despised physical violence, especially when he was the reason for it.

The liberty of skipping classes was both a curse and a blessing to the omega. Sure, it was great to give a boring lecture a pass in favor of sitting in the sun and or having a swim in the lake on a hot summer's day. However, all of those liberties always carried the connotation of people simply not expecting him to achieve anything in his life, except for raising some alpha's children.

Even when he finally did graduate from the university of Oxenfurt, with summa cum laude honors mind you, there were still those annoying mild smiles on his professors' faces. Like he had just drawn a beautiful picture to hang on his wall: pretty but completely useless.

The other alphas and betas had all been asking each other about what types of jobs they were planning on taking on and how much coin they would expect to make from them. No one had asked Jaskier that day. Or ever.


	5. Assumptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, the first part of this technically still belongs to the previous chapter, but I only thought of it now. xD Besides, it also fits the assumptions topic, so... ^^

When Jaskier had tried to convince his parents to let him attend the university of Oxenfurt, they had warned him that he wouldn't be accepted by his alpha and beta classmates. They didn't say it to deter him, it was simply how they expected things to go.

And indeed, on his first day at university, Jaskier had gotten quite a few surprised looks whenever people had become aware of his omega scent. But then Jaskier had started talking, animatedly waving his hands, cracking jokes about their professors, and just like that, his fellow students had welcomed him into their midst.

At first, the omegas would form a group of their own when the students were tasked with group works but after presenting their (good) results for a couple of times, they would be accepted into the other groups as well.

Soon Jaskier surprised his fellow students yet again, when he didn't shy away from the heated mock debates they were having as part of their classes but, in fact, volunteered for them. As an omega, people would have expected him to avoid all sorts of conflicts, even when it was a mock debate. But Jaskier didn't, instead, he seemed to revel in the attention.

His parents had also been worried that Jaskier being a male omega might cause problems regarding the changing room situation since physical edjucation was also a small part of their routine at university. It turned out they had worried for nothing though: Most of the times, there weren't enough unoccupied changing rooms to separate all three dynamics (plus the betas into male and female) anyways, so they would often just opt for separation by first gender.

By the end of their second year, one of their professors had finally noticed and asked Jaskier whether he had a problem with that. Jaskier had just laughed and told him that if that had been the case, he'd have said something about it long ago.

Even before Jaskier and Geralt had become mates, people had always acted like Jaskier belonged to Geralt. When Jaskier had been playing his songs in the taverns, occasionally flirting with the patrons because that's just what bards do to make everyone feel welcome and appreciated during a performance, people had sometimes been flinchng away from him. When Jaskier had asked them about it, he had learned that they were afraid of riling up his alpha. Jaskier had told them that Geralt, in fact, wasn't his alpha (which had been true at that point of time), but people still refused to let him flirt with them. At least as long as Geralt was around.

Sometimes after Jaskier's performances, they would even walk up to Geralt and apologize to him, making sure he understood that they hadn't been making any moves on 'his' omega.

They also seemed to be more mindful about how much coin they would give to Jaskier when Geralt was around, not wanting to risk making it look like they were trying to buy any favors from him.

Jaskier would still make decent coin when he was playing while Geralt was sitting at some dark corner of the room, nursing his ale. However, he was pretty sure it would have been even more if he'd been an alpha or a beta and no one had taken him for Geralt's mate. He'd even started telling his audience that he wasn't Geralt's mate and they had no reason to be worried about upsetting the alpha witcher before starting his performances, until...well, until the 'not his mate' statement simply wasn't true anymore.

Another assumption was that as an omega Jaskier was automatically good with children. Well, even though that was in fact true, it didn't mean that people could just hand their children to him whenever they left the tavern to relieve themselves or whatever.

Even back at Oxenfurt Jaskier had sometimes ended up with someone else's baby in his arms during a lecture, without him really knowing neither the baby nor the parents. The looks his professors had given him each time had been both annoying and priceless. They'd looked at him like they'd all been thinking: _'Finally, it was about time he ended up with one of these instead of worrying his brain with science and the seven liberal arts'._

Since Jaskier was travelling with Geralt, however, he'd found an effective way to keep people from randomly handing him their babies. Whenever someone would do it (without asking him first because if asked, Jaskier could be really nice), Jaskier would just show the child to Geralt, asking, 'What do you think, would it make for a good witcher?'

The baby would always be lifted out of Jaskier's arms by his horrified parents immediately, it worked every time.

Whenever people wanted to know something, they addressed their questions to Geralt instead of him. Jaskier had to admit, they really were right to ask Geralt for directions rather than him. But it also extended to people needing a letter to be written or read out loud to them because they weren't literate. They would walk right past Jaskier who had initially asked them if they needed any help, to hand their piece of paper to Geralt instead. The witcher would, of course, scowl at Jaskier for dragging him into this by offering Geralt's help to other people like that.

Sometimes Jaskier was wondering if it ever occured to Geralt that it hadn't been the help of his alpha but his own that he'd been offering.

The whole thing got especially ridiculous when Jaskier would purchase wares with Geralt next to him. Jaskier would hand the merchant his coin but they would always give his change back to Geralt, counting it out to the witcher, who had been paying absolutely no attention at all to what Jaskier had been buying and what the correct amount of change would be.

Geralt would always hand Jaskier's change back to him afterwards, but he would never make an attempt to tell any merchant that it was Jaskier's coin which should, accordingly, be directly given to the omega. It wasn't like Geralt was trying to encourage people to treat Jaskier that way. He was rather dealing with it the same way he was dealing with people calling him mutant or a monster: Geralt didn't like it, yet he knew that he couldn't do anything about it and therefore, he simply ignored it.

Jaskier was familiar with the witcher's way of dealing with things, so he wasn't bitter about Geralt never sticking up for his rights. It was annoying sometimes, yes, but Jaskier was never truly angry with his witcher. After all, it didn't really matter how strangers treated him, both of them actually, as long as he and Geralt respected each other. That was the only thing that truly mattered. Besides, when Jaskier had met the other witchers at Kaer Morhen for the first time, Geralt had made it very clear right from the start that Jaskier was allowed and fully capable of making his own decisions, regarding every aspect of his life.

There were often times other people, interestingly enough even other omegas, who thought they knew best about the way Jaskier wanted to live his life. They openly scorned Geralt for seemingly dragging Jaskier along on the path, making him share the life of a witcher, since an omega should be kept in a steady home and only get to see pretty things in their opinion. Every now and then other alphas would even offer to buy Jaskier from Geralt out of pity.

Jaskier would always assure them that he was actually following Geralt by choice and that he couldn't have been more happy with his mate. However, even then the other alphas still wouldn't be quite convinced, suspecting Jaskier was just lying to himself in order to make his life more bearable.

Jaskier truly did love accompanying Geralt on the path. Sure, he also would have liked a home with a roof, a hearth and a soft bed to sleep in every night. Still, he would have missed the sense of adventure, being able to play at so many different inns and taverns, getting to see and taste the world from Velen and Novigrad to the Isles of Skellige. Jaskier felt like he was living life to its fullest and he wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

So, did Jaskier dislike being an omega? Not at all. Sometimes he was annoyed by people not taking him seriously or he cursed himself for losing track of his heat cycle _yet again._ But he never would have changed his nature, even if he could have. He liked being a man and he liked his omega gender, and if the combination of these two things was something that made him special then...well, he liked being special.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your support! <3


End file.
